Writing Week 2020 - Publishing Party!!

Publishing parties are one of my favorite days in the school year.  They are a true celebration of all of the hard work your young authors put into their writing.

I created this freebie for you to celebrate your writers' hard work.  Click the image to grab it and to learn more about publishing parties:

Here's a little bit of what's included in this FREEBIE:

I hope your authors and YOU enjoy publishing parties in the future!

Tomorrow is all about strategies for improving writing!

Spooky Spiders and the Number 8

Happy Tuesday!  I love, love, love Halloween and the fun creatures we can study that tie into Halloween a wee bit without actually saying the word "Halloween".

Last week we started learning about spiders and the number 8.  I learned on day 1 that my kiddos are not afraid of spiders with this Cara Carroll inspired graph.

 

When learning about spiders, of course the number 8 pops up, which is partly why we started learning about spiders, because that's the number we are learning about.

We counted out 8 legs to make a spider hat...

We also played some games to learn the number 8.  This counting game was played by "spinning" a spinner and counting that number of spiders onto a web.

We also played a spin and record game to review numbers 1 through 8.

(You get these free downloads from my website -  spinner, tracing, and web.)

We also counted out 8 pipe cleaners to make spiders out of play-do.  The eyes are made with google eyes that are hot glued onto plug covers.

Another number 8 activity not involving spiders, was to create a skeleton - you know... a non-Halloween skeletons, with 8 "bones".

For more spider fun, we created a web by simply stringing white yarn through holes on black paper plates...

... then we attached our hand print spiders.

To learn more about spiders and their webs, we explored the stickiness of the web and trapped some insects.

Once the insects were trapped, we did an experiment (no pictures=sadness) in which we explored other sticky substances that also trapped the insects.  One of the sticky things was tape.  Then we came together as a class and stuck an insect to the tape.  We lifted the insect and saw the tape was still stuck to it, as well as stuck to me!  Then we learned that spiders don't stick to their webs because of the oil on their legs.  We dipped a spider into oil and walked him across the tape and noticed he didn't stick.  The cuties loved when I walked his unsticky self across and made munching noises as he gobbled the insect that was stuck to the tape.

Of course, we also enjoyed our spider web parachute and tried to free the insects before the spider got to them.

B-A-T-T-Y and Batty was his name-o! {Freebie Interactive Book}

I made this little song book for my cuties and wanted to share it with you as a freebie in my store.  Click the picture above to grab it!

As you sing the BINGO tuned song with your class, you turn each page to reveal a bat.  When students see a bat, they clap in place of the letter, just like in the song Bingo.

Pumpkins!

Y'all, I am missing kindergarten - TONS, but these new littles are capturing my heart for sure.  They make me laugh ALL THE TIME and they love learning so much.  Everything is so exciting for them.

This week is pumpkin week and we have been doing lots of fun pumpkin activities.  For math, we practiced numbers 1-6 with my (free) Pumpkin Roll and Cover activity in my shop:

We also played a ten frame game with my pumpkin ten frames I found at Dollar Tree.  I used the dice from my Pumpkin Roll and Cover above and stored the materials in these cutie patootie pumpkin felt bags from Target.

We also created our new favorite poem, 5 Little Pumpkins...

...and painted pumpkins.

For science, we read Pumpkin Pumpkin and practiced the life cycle of a pumpkin with my pumpkin life cycle props.

(Do you see the little seed, vine, yellow flower, small green pumpkin, and big orange pumpkin?)

We also enjoyed my little pumpkin book to learn more about pumpkins.

And of course, we explored the ooey, gooey fun inside of a pumpkin!

They had a blast!

Check out my Playful Pumpkins unit for more pumpkin fun!

By the way...  look at my little pumpkin!

Retelling Stories is "Weinderful"!

This past week we worked on retelling stories and my cuties above helped me out!  (Well, not my actual pups, but rather wiener-dog inspired lessons.)

All year, we have been using my retell ribbon to retell stories that we have read.  I am sure many of you have seen this floating around pinterest.  I made it last year and my cuties from last year really learned how to retell using it.  It has been great to use it all year with this group.

Basically it's a ribbon with these wooden pieces and buttons glued to it.  The tree represents the setting.  The cat represents characters.  The three buttons represent the beginning, middle, and end.  The ribbon represents how the author tied up his message in the book.  (What did we learn from this book?)  

We made our own retell ribbons to keep  in our book boxes this week.

 Click on the picture above to print off the pieces from my website.

I will admit that in the beginning I didn't go into a lot detail about beginning, middle and end until this last week.  I basically just let them tell me three things from the story at the start of the year and then moved into telling me more big ideas toward the middle of the year.  This past week we really focused on what the beginning, middle and end meant.

I used this book:

It is so stinkin' cute and I met the author at the International Reading Association a few weeks ago and he autographed it for us!  (This book also travels with our weekend friend.)

Then we wrote what happened at the beginning, middle, and end, with my guidance on my Kim Adsit inspired chart.

(Please forgive my terrible printing and unfinished chart.  This time of year gets crazy.  I will cutesie it up for next year - I promise!)

Then I typed up what my cuties had helped me write and we made our own wiener wolves.

 How cute are it's tiny legs!

Well, I am heading to bed.  We have 5 1/2 school days left.  I am incredibly sad to leave this group.  They have touched my heart in a huge way.  I just want to make every day count and make all 5 1/2 special for them.  

Have a happy week!